


Awfully Nice

by aretia



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Bodyswap, Canon-Typical Violence, Gabriel has anxiety, Impersonation, Ineffable Bureaucracy (Good Omens), Kidnapping, Nonbinary Beelzebub (Good Omens), Other, Protective Gabriel (Good Omens), They/Them Pronouns for Beelzebub (Good Omens), Unrequited Love, nonconsensual body swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:13:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23057539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aretia/pseuds/aretia
Summary: After Beelzebub gets attacked by angels, Gabriel notices that something is different about them... They're being nice to him!
Relationships: Beelzebub/Gabriel (Good Omens), Gabriel/Sandalphon (Good Omens)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 74





	Awfully Nice

“For the last time, I told you, you can pick up your dry cleaning on your own time later. I still have to go grocery shopping,” Beelzebub said through the small cell phone screen. 

“Didn’t you just do that last week?” Gabriel asked, sitting on the couch in their flat. He had decided to video-call Beelzebub while they were out doing errands to make sure they were safe. While he would feel much more reassured if he stayed by their side every moment of the day, they were both still hesitant to go out in public together. 

Heaven had long since given up on the first angel who had gone astray and dated a demon, but since Gabriel was an Archangel, his decision to do the same attracted a lot more scrutiny. The other angels had made their disapproval of Gabriel’s relationship quite clear, even making veiled threats against Beelzebub, and he had worked himself up about it to the point of paranoia.

“I wouldn’t expect you, of all people, to understand how food works,” Beelzebub said. “I buy the food. I wait for it to expire. I eat it. Then I go out and buy more.” 

“Couldn’t you just miracle it the way that you like it?” Gabriel suggested.

“Conjured food doesn’t taste right,” Beelzebub declared. “It doesn’t have the same stench of decay that real food has.”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Gabriel said. He fixed them with a pleading gaze. “Come home soon. I miss you.”

“Ew. You’re such a sap,” Beelzebub said.

“Admit it, you miss me too.”

Beelzebub let out a dismissive huff, but the way they averted their gaze from the phone told him that he had gotten under their skin, just like he intended. “I could go six thousand years without seeing you again and it still wouldn’t be enough to make me miss you.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Gabriel said, his signature shit-eating grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Suddenly, he heard a commotion of footsteps on Beelzebub’s end of the line. They looked up from the phone with a startled expression, and then dropped the phone altogether. “Beelzebub? You still there?” Gabriel called into the phone. He was left staring up at the view of a clear blue sky from where Beelzebub’s phone lay on the sidewalk, listening to the distant sounds of a struggle and Beelzebub’s screams of protest.

Panic coiled itself inside Gabriel’s chest. _They found us._ He had to protect Beelzebub. He had no way of knowing where they were or how he would get there. But he did remember from Beelzebub’s report on the traitor Crowley that demons could travel through phone signals. If demons could do it, there was no reason why angels couldn’t do it too. He abandoned his physical form and dove inside his cell phone, following its signal to Beelzebub’s. 

When he emerged on the other side and rematerialized on the sidewalk, he saw Beelzebub cornered against the wall in an alley by several thuggish angels. One of them had Beelzebub pinned to the wall by their wrists. They flailed and attempted to land a blow on the assailants with their feet, but they were unable to get any traction, dangling above the ground. 

“Hey! Get away from them!” Gabriel yelled, charging into the fray.

“Stay out of the way, Gabriel,” Beelzebub warned him.

He reached the wall and tried to pry the other angel’s hands off of them, but then a fist came flying at him from the side and a set of angelic brass knuckles made contact with his temple, knocking him to the ground.

“You should have listened to them. You should have stayed out of the way,” said a voice that he recognized as Sandalphon’s, before everything gave way to blackness and silence.

~

Gabriel came to a few minutes later. At first, he couldn’t tell if his eyes were open, because he was still surrounded by blackness. Then, he saw scarlet embers flickering through black swirls of ash, and he identified it as a forcefield of hellish power. 

Beelzebub’s silhouette drew towards him. It was only their silhouette, as their form had changed into a primal demonic entity, a shadow as black as the void with glowing red eyes, but he would still recognize Beelzebub’s essence in any form. Despite their fearsome appearance, he felt comforted by their presence wrapped around him. 

“Stay behind me. I won’t let them take you,” Beelzebub’s distorted voice said, echoing in his head rather than verbally spoken, before they plunged into the smoke again.

Gabriel watched them go as he lay on the ground, barely on the edge of consciousness. Feeling safe and protected, he let himself slip away.

~

The next time Gabriel woke up, he found himself in bed at his and Beelzebub’s flat. He felt a soft, cold, and soothing pressure atop his forehead. He opened his eyes, and struggled to sit up.

“Uh-uh,” Beelzebub said, lifting the washcloth from his forehead and wagging their finger at him. They placed their hand on his shoulder and gently pressed him back down into the pillows. “Don’t move too much yet. You need to rest.”

Beelzebub doting on him, telling him to rest, and holding a cold washcloth to his head? That was new. He thought he might still be unconscious and dreaming. “How hard did I hit my head?” Gabriel asked in confusion. 

“You went down pretty hard,” Beelzebub said. “Why?”

“Because you’re being nice to me,” Gabriel said. “Is this real?”

Beelzebub smiled, re-folding the washcloth on top of his head to a colder spot. “Yes, it’s real,” they said.

That only left him even more confused. He had expected to wake up with his head pounding and immediately be dragged into a screaming match with Beelzebub over who had gotten themselves into more danger, which was still their way of showing that they cared about him, but he hadn’t expected anything like this. “Why? Why are you being so nice to me?”

Beelzebub looked away from him shyly, a blush creeping over their cheeks. “When we got attacked, I had a change of heart,” they said. “I realized that every moment I spend with you is fleeting and precious. I want to protect and nurture you. Is that so strange?”

“It is a bit strange, coming from you,” Gabriel confessed. “But I’ll get used to it.”

“Good,” Beelzebub said. They leaned over him in bed, propping their arms up on his chest, and brought their lips to his in a soft, lingering kiss.

~

“Gabriel! Please don’t go!” Beelzebub whined as Gabriel made his way to the door. They wrapped their arms around his waist, sliding them under his suit jacket and holding on tight.

“It’s just a short meeting in Heaven. I’ll be back in a few hours,” he reassured them. “I really can’t miss it. We have to keep them off our backs somehow.” Heaven had left them alone in the days since the attack, which was a welcome reprieve, but Gabriel wasn’t going to let it lull him into a false sense of security. 

“I’m sure they won’t notice if you just stay here with me,” Beelzebub said.

“I’m an Archangel. I’m pretty sure they’ll notice,” Gabriel replied. “What’s wrong? You’re not usually this clingy.”

“I’m a demon. Can’t I tempt you to sloth without it being suspect?” Beelzebub quipped.

“That is, by definition, _very_ suspect,” Gabriel said with a chuckle. “Any other time, I suppose it would be all right. But I really need to go to this meeting.”

“Fine,” Beelzebub sighed dramatically. They gave him another squeeze before letting him pry their arms off of his waist. “I’ll miss you.”

He remembered a time not too long ago when those words were anathema to them, when they would rather make a show of rejecting him than admit that they missed him. Hearing those words fall so easily from their lips set him off balance. “I’ll miss you too,” he said, leaning down to press a kiss to Beelzebub’s forehead. “Look after yourself while I’m gone.”

Beelzebub picked up Gabriel’s scarf from the coat rack and draped it around his neck. “You too,” they said.

~

When Gabriel arrived in Heaven, he was struck by how much he really did miss Beelzebub. The spacious white halls where he had once spent all of his time now felt cold and uninviting, and he longed to be back in the arms of his beloved demon. He only had to endure this for a few hours and keep a fake smile plastered on his face, and then he could return to their welcoming embrace. 

While waiting for the conference room doors to open, Sandalphon made his way through the crowd to Gabriel. “Hi, Gabriel! It’s so good to see you again!” he greeted him.

“Hello, Sandalphon,” Gabriel replied, with markedly less enthusiasm.

Noticing the coldness in Gabriel’s voice, Sandalphon backpedaled. “I’m sorry that the last time I saw you ended up with me punching you,” he said. 

“That was unfortunate,” Gabriel said, not giving him the satisfaction of accepting his apology. Heaven might be all about forgiveness, but that didn’t mean its employees had to get along.

“I was just doing whatever I could to get you away from that vile demon,” Sandalphon said by way of an excuse. “I’m glad that you have escaped their clutches and returned to us.”

Gabriel tugged at his collar nervously. “Yeah, what a relief,” he muttered, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. If Sandalphon and the other angels thought that he had separated from Beelzebub, they might be at an even greater risk than ever before. He would have to work even harder to hide his relationship with them, because Heaven didn’t give second chances. He tried to calm his mind as he sat through the meeting, but as Michael’s presentation droned on, he grew increasingly desperate to return to Beelzebub. 

Gabriel came home to an empty flat. He searched all over every room, even under the bed, but he couldn’t find them. He fumbled for his phone and called them, but their phone rang on the coffee table. He frantically tried to plan his next course of action when the door swung open, revealing Beelzebub, leaning against the doorframe and gasping for breath.

“Beelzebub!” Gabriel said, rushing to the door to help them inside, and then slamming the door shut behind them in case anyone was following them. “What happened?”

“I was just out doing errands again,” Beelzebub panted, “and I thought you might be coming home soon, so I ran to get home in time. What’s wrong?”

“Oh, thank Heavens,” Gabriel exclaimed. He fell to his knees and threw his arms around Beelzebub’s waist. “I think the other angels don’t realize that you’re still with me on Earth. If they find out you’re still here, they might come after you again. I was worried that something had happened to you.”

Beelzebub’s hand stroked his head. “Don’t worry, Gabriel,” they said. “Those angels won’t be able to harm us now.”

~

Gabriel had barely left the apartment for two weeks. He skipped meetings with Heaven to stay with Beelzebub, which never seemed to come back to bite him as much as he thought it would. Sandalphon was still trying to kiss up to him, so he always made excuses for Gabriel not being there, and the rest of the angels bought it, despite rumors that Sandalphon wasn’t showing up at said meetings, either. His celestial duties all but forgotten, Gabriel settled into his peaceful, if isolated, domestic life with Beelzebub. 

Beelzebub lay on the couch with their head in Gabriel’s lap, blissfully dozing while he ran his fingers through the messy mop of their short black hair. 

Beelzebub had been different since the attack. Not different in a bad way, but in a way that took some getting used to. They had become so open with their affection and accepting of their feelings towards Gabriel that he felt overwhelmed by it. He told himself that this was what he had always wanted, the ability to freely express his love for Beelzebub and have it reciprocated, but he couldn’t ignore the nagging sense in the back of his mind that something was missing. He missed their caustic insults and spirited bickering. He missed needling them about liking him until their hair fluffed up and their face turned bright red, one of his favorite pastimes. He missed everything about them that made them the Beelzebub he knew. 

Beelzebub’s sky blue eyes drifted open, and they looked up at Gabriel with a placid smile. “Gabriel?”

“Yes?” he said.

“I love you,” Beelzebub said.

Gabriel had waited for so long to hear those words, but now that Beelzebub had finally said them, for some reason, they felt hollow and insincere. “Aren’t you meant to say, ‘I hate everyone, but I hate you the least,’ or something like that?” Gabriel said, helping Beelzebub to sit up from his lap.

“Why would I say that?” said Beelzebub. “I don’t hate you.” 

“You say you hate me almost every day,” Gabriel replied. “Or, at least, you used to. That was your thing." He scooted away from Beelzebub on the couch and stood up to pace around the coffee table. "Something doesn't seem right about you lately."

"I'm still the same as always," said Beelzebub, nervously twisting their hands. 

Gabriel sensed that he had landed on a sensitive spot, so he pressed on. "You're not acting like yourself. You're… nice, and affectionate, and I like it, I really do, but I'm worried about you. I miss the old Beelzebub."

Beelzebub’s mouth spread open in a wide grin. Beelzebub rarely smiled, so that was disturbing on its own, but this smile looked sharp enough to split through their skin. When their teeth were fully revealed, Gabriel caught sight of a silver grill adorning their front teeth. 

"The old Beelzebub is gone," said Beelzebub, in a voice that fluctuated between their own and someone else's, but the other voice was still familiar. 

"Sandalphon?" said Gabriel. 

"Hi, Gabriel," said Sandalphon in Beelzebub’s body. "You like my new look?" 

"What have you done with Beelzebub?" Gabriel snarled. He grabbed Sandalphon by the ribbon collar that Beelzebub wore, and yanked the short figure up to face him. Sandalphon’s grin didn’t waver. 

“I only got them out of our way, so that we could be together,” said Sandalphon.

The revelation that Sandalphon had feelings for him was so sudden, and yet so obvious that he felt incredibly dense for not realizing it sooner. “Is that why you’re doing this?” Gabriel asked.

“I tried so hard to show you how much I loved you. But it didn't matter, because all you cared about was that filthy demon,” Sandalphon spat in disgust. “I thought that if I couldn't earn your love on my own, I would take the place of your pet demon, and show you what you're missing.” 

He reached out a delicate hand to caress Gabriel’s face, and Gabriel recoiled from the touch. “The love between angels is pure. You won’t have to hide anymore,” Sandalphon said. “You’re happier now than you ever would have been with them. I can give you everything you’ve ever wanted.”

“All I want is Beelzebub back,” Gabriel said. He heaved Sandalphon off the ground by the collar, lifting his fishnet-sock-clad feet off the floor. “Tell me where they are, and maybe I won’t unleash all the heavenly power in my body to destroy you.” He flashed an insincere grin that was even more chilling than Sandalphon’s.

“You won’t find them,” said Sandalphon. “In fact, now that the jig is up, I won’t need to borrow their body anymore. I had better go dispose of it…” He disappeared from Gabriel’s grasp in a puff of gray smoke. 

Gabriel gritted his teeth and followed him, leaving nothing but a purple cloud behind in the apartment. 

~

Sandalphon was not known for his creativity. If he was holding Beelzebub captive so that he could swap bodies with them at will, he had to keep them close by, and the only place he could do that was in his personal office. 

Gabriel appeared in the supply closet across the hall from Sandalphon’s office, and peered around the corner. The office had a glass wall looking out onto the hallway, and through it he could clearly see Sandalphon sitting idly at his computer. It had to be the real Sandalphon, since he wouldn’t let Beelzebub sit in his body out in the open like that. Gabriel only hoped that he had gotten the timing right. He shuddered to think of what would happen to Beelzebub if he was too late. 

Down the hall from Sandalphon’s office was the copy room, which had a heavenly printer that no miracle could seem to fix. It made a loud screeching noise every time it printed a page, and once it started printing, there was no way to turn it off. Gabriel had brought his phone with him, and he used it to send a thousand-page document to that very printer.

He watched as Sandalphon noticed the screeching, and the frustrated clicking of his pen turned into angrily throwing the pen against the wall, until he slammed his hands down on the desk and stood up. Gabriel waited until he stormed over to the copy room and attempted to shut down the printer, and then slipped into Sandalphon’s office.

Sandalphon's office had a water feature, a fountain of holy water that covered an entire wall, pouring out from the ceiling into a well on the floor. Gabriel had never thought anything of it, other than that it was ostentatious and a waste of celestial wages. The wall behind it was the same stark white color as the others, but now there was something behind the translucent panel, a dark shape blurred by the curtain of water. Gabriel stepped under the waterfall and pushed open a door into a hidden room. 

The petite figure curled up on the floor of the cell looked like Beelzebub, but with how Sandalphon had tricked him, he couldn't be sure if it was the real Beelzebub or another double. He snapped his fingers to miracle himself dry, and then stepped closer to them. "Beelzebub?" 

The body that might be Beelzebub’s sat up and turned to him, their blue eyes rimmed with dark circles. "Gabriel?" they said, their voice carrying a note of hope. Then, "Took you long enough, you stupid, useless angel."

"Beelzebub… It's really you!" Gabriel cried out as a surge of relief crashed through him. He knew he would probably get snapped at for what he was about to do, but he couldn’t help himself. He kneeled in front of Beelzebub, sweeping them up in his arms. "Beelzebub, I'm so sorry, I missed you so much," he said, pressing kisses all over their face and neck in between every few words. 

"Shut up and get me out of here," Beelzebub demanded, and Gabriel was happy to comply, now that his feisty little demon was back to the way they should be. 

Gabriel stood up, his arms hooked underneath Beelzebub’s back and spindly knees. Beelzebub thrashed in his arms, yelling, "Put me down!" 

"I'm going to carry you through the fountain, but you need to stop squirming, so that I can make sure you don’t get a single drop on you,” Gabriel said. Beelzebub relented, wrapping their arms around Gabriel’s shoulders. 

As an archangel, Gabriel had six wings, each of them as large as a typical angel’s wing on its own. He unfurled his wings and folded them around himself and Beelzebub, using the top pair to drape over them like an umbrella, and the lower two pairs to cradle them, forming an unbroken cocoon of feathers around the demon’s body. 

Beelzebub liked Gabriel’s wings. Their protests silenced as they admired the pearly feathers, their fingers gently stroking the soft down. All Gabriel had to do was open his wings, and Beelzebub would be soothed like a baby. He would save that comparison for a time when he really wanted to push their buttons, but for now, he wanted it to work. 

He stepped through the holy water fountain, the water rolling harmlessly off his wings. When he tucked his wings back into nothingness, he checked Beelzebub over for any lethal water droplets. “You still intact?” he asked.

“Everything except my dignity,” Beelzebub replied. 

“Great! Let’s go,” said Gabriel, bubbling with characteristic cheerfulness. That good mood only carried him to the door of Sandalphon’s office, because when he stepped out into the hallway, he immediately bumped into the last person he wanted to see: the Archangel Michael.

Ever since Gabriel had settled down on Earth with Beelzebub, Michael had taken over his duties as head archangel. So far, she was doing an admirable job of it, as she always kept track of everything that was going on in Heaven. Except that meant that if Sandalphon's plot to kidnap Beelzebub and impersonate them was part of some heavenly agenda to get him back on their side, then Michael had to be behind it. He could hardly imagine giving Sandalphon credit for a ruse that elaborate, but Michael was plenty capable of coming up with it, along with failsafes ready to spring into place in case Gabriel figured it out. 

“Gabriel? What are you doing here?” Michael said. The mild surprise on her face transformed into shock when she saw Beelzebub in his arms. “And what are _they_ doing here?”

"Er… What are you doing here?" Gabriel blurted, which made Beelzebub slap their hand over their forehead. 

“I was just making my rounds and checking in on Sandalphon, because he’s been acting strange lately, but it seems I have other matters to attend to,” Michael said sternly. “Quite frankly, I think I have every right to be concerned that a high-ranking demon is snooping around in our private offices!”

She didn’t seem to know what was going on, so this was going to be easier than he thought. All he had to do was appeal to her need to be in the know at all times. “I can explain,” said Gabriel, the words rushing out of his mouth. 

Beelzebub decided that a better use of their hand was to clasp it over Gabriel's mouth. 

Gabriel’s first impulse when Beelzebub put their hand over his mouth was to stick out his tongue and lick their palm, but then he remembered that Beelzebub would _like_ that, and the last thing they needed was for either of them to get into that mood right now. “Beelz, I got this,” Gabriel mumbled, resorting to the nickname because it was all he could get out through their fingers. Beelzebub reluctantly released their hold and crossed their arms. Michael raised an eyebrow at him expectantly. 

“I can tell you why Sandalphon has been acting strange lately,” said Gabriel. “He abducted Beelzebub, imprisoned them in his office, and swapped bodies with them.”

Michael let out a scandalized gasp. “He what?”

“He didn’t have approval from you to do that, did he?” Gabriel pressed.

“No, he most certainly did not! That would be against protocol!” Michael said. Her outrage wasn’t because following protocol was important to her, but because she liked to pretend she was the only one in Heaven who ever broke a few rules here and there. “You’re saying that he did this without my knowledge, for his own personal reasons, without even thinking about the political impact that kidnapping a Prince of Hell could have on our tenuous working relationship with the other side?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. He had other angels with him when he did it. You might want to investigate them, too,” Gabriel suggested.

“I will. Thank you for the tip, Gabriel.” Just then, Sandalphon came around the corner from the copy room, holding a large bundle of papers in his arms. Michael turned around and shot him a poisonous glare so potent that it made him drop the whole stack. “Sandalphon! I would like to have a word with you,” she called down the hallway. Her heels clacking against the tile floor sounded like a death knell. 

Once Michael had dragged Sandalphon by the collar into her office, the tension drained from Gabriel’s body, and he breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, it looks like we’re free to go,” he said.

He made to set Beelzebub down on their feet, but Beelzebub clung to his shoulders. “I didn’t say you could put me down,” they said.

“But earlier, you said you didn’t want to be carried,” Gabriel pointed out, a fond smile creeping onto his face. 

“I am a Prince, and as such, I deserve to be pampered,” Beelzebub said.

Gabriel chuckled, and tightened his hold. They both knew exactly what game they were playing, and Gabriel’s reverse psychology was so transparent that it couldn’t fool anyone, but as long as he got to hold Beelzebub, he wasn’t complaining.

~

Gabriel carried Beelzebub all the way to the threshold of their flat. He only released them to lie down on the couch, and even then he still craved more of their touch. They loomed over him, arms crossed, while he held out his hand to them with a cloying smile. “Now that we’re out of that mess, how about a rescuer’s kiss?”

“Ew, no. I’m perfectly capable of rescuing myself,” said Beelzebub. 

“Not from that holy water fountain, though.” 

“You can have a kiss to shut you up,” Beelzebub retorted. They straddled him on the couch, and plunged down to devour his lips. 

It had been too long since he had properly made out with Beelzebub. Their hands hooked behind both of his ears and pulled him in like they couldn’t get enough of him, their tongue flicking into his mouth desperately. The phony Beelzebub’s kisses were always chaste, and if that was what angels’ kisses were supposed to be like, he would choose his demon any day. 

Suddenly, Beelzebub pulled back, wearing the same repulsed expression on their face that appeared whenever they drank milk that was before its expiration date. “Ugh, I just realized, you kissed _Sandalphon_ with that mouth. When I kiss you, I’m indirectly kissing Sandalphon.” They stuck out their tongue and wiped it off with their hand. 

“You were inside his body. I don’t see how that’s any better,” Gabriel replied.

“Don’t remind me,” Beelzebub groaned. “I still can’t believe you mistook that oaf for me. You really are an idiot.” They settled down between Gabriel’s side and the back of the couch, resting their head on his shoulder and playing with his tie. “But I do wonder, since he managed to fool you for so long, what was it that finally tipped you off?”

“He was too nice. When you weren’t being mean to me every second of every day, I knew it wasn’t really you.” Beelzebub shoved him in the shoulder. “See what I mean?” Gabriel said.

He tapped his lip with his finger in contemplation. “Although you did protect me after I showed up in the alley and proved myself thoroughly useless. That was a nice thing that you did. Unless that was already Sandalphon posing as you.”

Beelzebub sat up and glared at him, affronted. “How dare you! Of course that was me! I summoned all of my demonic power to protect you! How you could possibly give Sandalphon credit for that baffles and offends me.”

“Okay, okay,” Gabriel said, placing his hand over theirs to calm their feigned outrage. “I thought it was you. Thank you for protecting me. I was really touched by that.”

Something that sounded like _you’re welcome_ was born on Beelzebub’s lips, but it came out as, “Whatever. It’s not like I have a choice when your stupid ass goes running into danger all the time.”

“Still, I appreciate it,” said Gabriel. Guilt weighed in the back of his mind, and he added, “I’m sorry that I couldn’t protect you the same way.”

“S’okay,” Beelzebub said with a shrug. He suspected that they would need to talk about what they had gone through at some point, but weren’t ready yet. 

“It’s not, though,” Gabriel said. “What he did to you was unacceptable. I won’t pry, but if you ever want to talk about what happened, I’m here for you.”

Beelzebub’s mouth pulled taut in a thin line. “Sandalphon told me that you wouldn’t come back for me, because you were happier with him. And I believed him.”

“That is absolutely not true,” Gabriel said, enfolding them in his arms to cradle their head against his chest. “Everything about you makes you who you are, and that’s why I…” He had been about to say _I love you,_ but he remembered why he hesitated to say those words around Beelzebub. They always refused to say it back. 

“You what?” Beelzebub prompted.

“When Sandalphon was pretending to be you, he said he loved me. That was the moment I realized it wasn’t you, because you’ve never said that to me before,” Gabriel said. “Do you love me?”

Beelzebub nuzzled their face into the crook of Gabriel’s shoulder. “I won’t deny it,” they said softly, “as long as you never, ever make me say it out loud.”

“Deal,” said Gabriel, beaming, and then he pulled them up by the shoulders to kiss them again. He didn’t need them to say it out loud. He could feel it in the way their lips interlocked with his, and the way their body fit perfectly in his arms, and the way their familiar presence filled his heart with peace.


End file.
